


Love in the Dark

by Kaori_Maxwell



Series: Total Eclipse [2]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst, F/F, Missing Scene, Relationship Negotiation, Spoilers for Episode What's Past is Prologue, Spoilers for Episode: The War Without The War Within, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 02:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13603857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaori_Maxwell/pseuds/Kaori_Maxwell
Summary: It's Philippa. How could she have been expected to stay away?





	Love in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Onwards with the ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ references.  
> Missing scene, set after Michael’s talk with Ash, but before the last scene on the bridge with _Captain_ Georgiou. The looks between those two then just made me write faster.
> 
> I will add to this series as inspiration strikes. Or as MirrorPhilippa strikes. We'll see.
> 
> Beta read by the wonderful Noctuabunda - thank you!

The quarters were darkened when she was admitted to entering them.

„She’s still not here, Michael. I know you’re looking for her, but there’s only me.” 

“Maybe I’m not.”

Abruptly the emperor turned away from the window to face her, “Don’t. Don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t you think that every time I see you, I have to remind myself that you’re not her?” 

“Still I want to see you.”

“Do you now?” She started stalking towards Michael, and with the way she walked and held herself she soon had her backed up against the wall once more. “This is not right.”

“But is it really so wrong?”

“Do you want to know why she and I grew apart so much?”

Michael wordlessly indicated for her to continue.

“I took her in as my successor, called her my daughter and watched her grow up.” One of her hands trailed carefully, almost absentmindedly, down her cheek. “But as the years went by, I had to realize that my feelings for her... were changing. I started pulling away from her, hoping that distance would cure my infatuation. But instead the feelings festered and when I had to watch her turn to Lorca more and more, thriving on the attention and him _taking_ what I had refused myself-! I started hating him then and I knew his betrayal would only be a matter of time. But getting her killed? That is what was always foremost on my mind when I planned his demise.”

“Then I am glad it was your hand that finished him.”

“Are you?” The hand that had trailed her cheek now settled upon her hip. “Do you not regret his death? Did you not feel for him?”

“Do you have to ask?”

Both hands were on her hips now and tightened their grip. “ _Yes_.”

“...no. I did not. I started to look up to him, it’s true, but that image was a lie, a mirage. There was another I had thought I loved, but I was wrong there, too... he turned out to be a spy, tried to strangle me. And seeing you, hearing you, _feeling_ you-“ she pressed slightly back against the other woman, “-only forces me to realize how much I really felt for Philippa and never fully realized.”

“We’re both only substitutes of the other, my dear.”

“If that means a little bit of solace and being able to stay in your presence, I’m still willing to accept that. The question is, can you allow yourself the same?”

“What is it exactly you want?” 

Michael could feel the thumbs of the hands on her hips start to draw small circles and heaved a sigh. “Everything. What is it you’re willing to give?” she reciprocated and put one hand on Philippa’s side, the other curving around the side of her neck, the fingers curling a bit into the hairline there.

In answer, she leaned closer and whispered: “We’ll have to find out.” 

“ _Yes_...” The weight with which she had been held against the wall now suddenly registered as something else entirely, when the leg that was pressed between hers started to increase the pressure. “Oh!” Michael tightened her grip on Philippa and closed her eyes, only realising she had done so when her quiet voice suddenly was right next to her ear, hot breath caressing her cheek. “Are you still sure about this?”

“Don’t you dare stop!”

She felt the low chuckle against her neck, spared a thought to welcome her attention there to erase the memory of hands around her throat, a moment before the lips were joined by teeth; first biting lightly, then not so lightly and she found herself squirming ever more against the leg insinuated between her own. “Oh love. Are you so desperate for me?”

“Yes- yes I am.” She gasped out.

“Believe you me: I am as well. I may show it differently, but I am.” The biting at her neck continued with fresh vigour and she felt as if a current ran down her spine, heat pooling between her legs, and strained for more contact with the body in front of hers.

Michael managed to divert Philippa’s attention from her neck enough to manage a few kisses, deeper than the one before and knew that she was falling deeper and deeper into that particular rabbit hole. “Can I stay the night?”

“Won’t you be missed?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t really care.” _Not with you in my arms, doing things I never thought would come to pass like that._

“Then stay. I feel like I’m not through with you.”

Michael cradled Philippa’s face in her hands, so familiar and yet so different,“Likewise.”

“Maybe we could walk over to that bed, lose some of our clothes?”

Michael allowed herself a small grin, “I am very amenable to that suggestion.”

 

* * * * * * * *

 

“Hey!” Sylvia suddenly appeared at her table and sat herself down.

“Good morning.”

“Morning! So, where have you been?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where have you been last night? You haven’t been in engineering and you certainly haven’t been at our quarters, so...?”

“I’ve been around.”

“Yes, well, I gathered as much, because: Spaceship and nowhere else to go and with the whole Ash thing being rather problematical, and I’m kinda sorry I pressured you into seeing him, because he told me a bit of how that went, and he doesn’t seem to be the sharpest knife in the kitchen at how to salvage a relationship and I worried about you being lonely and sad and-“ 

“I haven’t been alone. I had to talk some things through.”

“Oh... with your dad?”

“No.”

“Ah. Well you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Just so you know you -could- talk to me because I’d listen.”

“Thank you, Tilly.”

“And I won’t tell anyone that I saw you yesterday going to the guest quarters, but maybe you should get a hand on a dermal regenerator, because even through your dark skin tone, I can see by the state of your neck that whoever you _have_ been with, has been really happy to see you.” She punctuated her monologue with a bite from her wrap.

Michael did her best to refrain from raising a hand to her neck. “I will keep that in mind.”

Tilly beamed at her.


End file.
